In order to effectively apply short or long tail keywords and phrases to your website, you must first understand what they are and how they work.

Let’s first review how search engines rank your site. In case you aren’t aware of how this process works, we’ll make it simple for the purposes of this blog post.

Search engines (like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DogPile) will rank websites within categories and subcategories. So, take the example of the category of “cars”. Every site, which is in the millions, that relates to cars is going to be ranked within the list of search results that would appear for someone searching for “cars”.

But let’s be realistic here, no one is going to search for something as generic as “cars”. They will most likely be searching for more specific keywords, like “car dealerships”, “car parts” or “buying and selling cars”. These would be considered “short” keyword phrases.

When optimizing your site, (commonly known as the process of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO) you must perform extensive keyword research in order to formulate a list of the most attainable, easy to rank and effective keywords to apply to your site. And by apply, that means including these keywords on both the front and back end of your website. From page titles, meta tags and HTML coding to page content, navigation and important linking campaigns, keywords are the very foundation and heart and soul of your website.

The more specific the keyword phrase is, the less difficult it is to rank highly with the search engines. The higher you are ranked, the better chance you have of your website being viewed by a potential customer, or better known as the person performing the search. But get too specific, and you run the risk of never being found. Let’s face it, you may show up as the first search result for “car dealerships in Miami, Florida that sell Hondas to women”, but you will most likely never be found. Why? Because no one is going to search for that exact keyword phrase, or at least, it is highly unlikely that they will.

While this very specific keyword phrase would be considered a long tail keyword, it would not be an effective one to apply to your site. But alter it just slightly, and you might just have some luck. For example, “car dealerships in Miami, Florida that sell Hondas”, although shorter, is still
considered a long tail keyword phrase and is clearly very specific. This is a long tail that is much more likely to be searched and may actually materialize into a sale for you.

The key to understanding keywords is to have a strategy and manage it well. What that strategy is should be up to you and specific to your business, but how a keyword strategy actually works is always the same. You must select both short and long tail keywords, apply them to your site and maintain your SEO efforts on a regular basis to ensure your rankings are constantly improving.

In today blog post let’s talk a little about how to do article marketing to attract more targeted prospects, increase exposure for your business and make more sales as a result.

It is no big secret that in today’s very competitive online marketplace, the importance of attracting targeted prospects for your business is more essential than ever. The good news is, there are a wide variety of marketing and advertising methods you can use to drive traffic to your website and promote your business including; paid advertising, link building, search engine and affiliate marketing, just to name a few.

While effective, many of these methods will either cost you a small fortune of suck up all of your valuable time before you even begin to see results. However, there are ways of promoting your business and increasing your website traffic without having to spend a dime.

Writing and submitting articles is one of those methods and when done correctly it can be the most effective promotion strategies that you will ever use.

I know what you are thinking; “can writing articles really help me increase my website traffic and promote my business”?

The answer is a resounding “YES” it can!

It can actually benefit your business in many ways that other (free and paid) methods can never do, no matter how much money and time you sink into them.

One of the main things that article writing and marketing can do for your business is to quickly help you reach more people and not just any people.

A well written article can help you reach right out and grab the attention of your target audience. These are the people who want to know what you have to say and want to buy what you have to sell.

The simple fact is, whenever you write a great article and share it with other people by posting on your website or submitting it to other websites, directories and to online publishers it has the potential to give your business massive amounts of exposure for months, maybe even years to come.

One of the best ways that you can make your article marketing campaign a huge success is by carefully constructing your author’s resource box. The little box will be attached to your article whenever it is shared or republished. It should include brief but valuable information about you, your business, an enticing free offer and of course a link back to your website.

To get maximum results when writing your articles try to focus your content on good keywords and phrases that are closely related to your website and products. This will help in several ways. It will make it easier for the search engines to index your articles, it will make it easier for the right people to find your article and it will help attract highly targeted traffic to your website.

When you submit your well crafted, keyword focused article to online directories and other websites and publishers find your article helpful and informative they will post it on their own website, publish it in their newsletter resulting in links back to your website.

When writing articles for your business, always keep in mind that most people who go online are searching for information and by providing them with that information you and your business will reap the rewards of free exposure and more traffic.

At least not if you are new to marketing online. Not at first. But most everyone dreams of being able to make money doing nothing. And internet marketing can be used to eventually make passive residual income.

Residual income is income that continues to be generated after the initial effort has been expended. So, if you work hard and do things right in the beginning, you will continue to earn off of this effort, even long after you have moved on to other things.

Success in internet marketing usually comes very slowly. You could go on for years without seeing any return, but if you are consistent and continue to work at it, you will gradually begin to see the money rolling in. And once this happens, you will see the snowball effect take place and eventually you will be able to make money doing nothing!

So what do you need to work at?

You need to bring traffic to whatever it is that you are promoting – to your blog, website, squeeze page or to your affiliate product website. The more people you can get to your website, the more sales you will make.

So what are some of the pros and cons of internet marketing?

First of all, if you prefer to have a regular “guaranteed” paycheck where the amount of time you put in equals the amount of money you receive, internet marketing is probably not for you.

If you don’t like to study and learn new things, learning internet marketing is probably not for you. If you need someone else to motivate you or manage your activities, internet marketing is not for you.

One of the most obvious pros of internet marketing is that you don’t have a boss telling you what to do. You work for yourself and make all the decisions. Being able to work whenever and wherever you please is a great goal to shoot for.

Your pay is not an hourly wage or salary so there is no limit to how much money you can make. Let’s say for example that you decide to write your own e-book (it may sound difficult to you now but this is a very attainable goal if you do just a little bit of training). You spend a lot of time on this e-book and then you make money off of the sales for years to come – you just need to make sure that you are driving traffic to the sales page of your e-book.

This is what passive residual income is. . .and it is one of the greatest benefits that internet marketing offers. Putting out or representing a quality product once or twice a year will have a great impact on your income for the months or years, even if you’re not working. Again, that’s how you can make money doing nothing.

If you send promotional emails from your ISP, you will be reported as a spammer. The next thing you know, you might have to close shop.

Autoresponders can be exclusively used to send these routine follow up emails to the thousands of contacts on the list. You can plan and keep your emails ready, and set the autoresponder to send it at the specific intervals you want.

It can keep track of subscribers signing in and even respond to let them know they have been signed in. Practically every single routine emailing activity can be handled by the autoresponder, which is why no online marketing can do without it.

How It Works

You can use a follow up autoresponder that can keep the follow up work ongoing with your contacts. No subscriber is going to worry about when your next email is coming, and you certainly cannot expect them to remember your particular message among the hundreds they must be getting on a daily basis.

That’s where an autoresponder comes in. To keep your business information alive in the subscriber’s mind.

Program It And It Does The Rest.

You only have to keep your messages ready, decide on a sending schedule and your autoresponder takes care of the rest for as long as you have set it.

This will mean that you can concentrate on other equally important issues while your sales keep coming in, thanks to your autoresponder’s faithful follow up.

In fact, it even lets you go on holiday while it keeps your office practically running!. Your autoresponder can help you send out useful information to your contacts.

Instead of using the same: dear subscriber: for all your contacts, you can make your autoresponder address each contact by name and send the email.

It is always nicer to receive an email addressed to us personally than get the feeling that we are one in a massive group of recipients. The autoresponder can even be programmed to wish your contacts “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings”

List Tracking

It can track your lists. This means you can make carefully thought out offers to your target audience. They just want to know what is in it for them. So you can structure your message accordingly so that it appeals to them.

Experienced online marketers recommend that it is better to use autoresponders that give you an update about contact statistics. This can be split into month/week/day to tell you which of your leads are active and which ones have opted out, helping you in healthy list maintenance.

Keeping In Touch

Autoresponders help you in keeping in touch with your subscribers, giving them relevant information about your business, say, when you get fresh stocks or if you are planning a discount sale. Or you can even make your new subscribers some kind of special offer. This will keep your contact list alive and help you turn them into continuous sales!

You can also get your autoresponder to get activated when a contact signs up at your website. After they write their name and email address, when they send the information, it goes to the autoresponder URL that will send an acknowledgement right away.

Factors To Consider While Buying An Autoresponder.

When you decide to use an autoresponder, you want to ensure that it is the one best suited to your needs in terms of performance, customer support, features and cost. These parameters must be balanced and convince you that it is the right one for you.

In terms of performance, the main thing to consider while getting an autoresponder is delivery of email. The higher the ability to deliver emails, the better. The provider of the autoresponder must support you with prompt customer service that knows what it is talking about.

Just imagine getting stuck half way through your campaign! So look for one that is accessible easily and responds quickly.

Features are only as useful as you find them for your business. It is possible that you may not use all the features your autoresponder provides. But you can have it working efficiently for you when you are clear about what you want and set it accordingly.

Next, you want to check that what you are paying to use your autoresponder does not cut into your profits. After all, you are trying to find ways to build your lists, not incur losses. So check what it will cost you in service, set up, monthly expenditure and other costs that may not have been mentioned.

There is no use getting an autoresponder that you can’t afford.

Sequential Auto responders.

Technology is advancing all the time to make the online marketer’s life easier. Many online business use what are called sequential autoresponders. These collect and save the names and email addresses of your contacts. This enables it to continue to send messages in sequential intervals, set by you, to your potential contacts. It can also take attached documents.

To summarize, your autoresponder can help you build massive lists depending on what you use it for. It helps in building an impression of your reliability, makes your customers have more faith in you and keeps them thinking about you.